‘Casey testimony wrong’

Press, 29 June 1987, Page 10

‘Casey testimony wrong’

NZPA-Reuter Washington

Secret Congressional testimony by the former C.I.A. director, William Casey, last November contained misleading or wrong statements and one revelation which committee members ignored, the “Washington Post” reported. The newspaper said Mr Casey’s testimony to the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, released at the week-end,

showed he gave incorrect accounts of several key . episodes during the secret programme of arms sales to Iran. The newspaper also said State Department officials, who were pre- - sent during Casey’s testimony, did not try to correct him. The “Post” said Casey’s testimony came after a bureaucratic battle inside the Reagan Administration in which the Secre-

tary of State, George Shultz, and his legal adviser, Abraham Sofaer, protested to the White House that testimony Casey was to have given on November 21 contained false information. Mr Sofaer threatened to quit if it was not changed. The “Post” said Mr Casey, who has since died, changed his plan to testify that no one in the United States Government knew in advance that Hawk

anti-aircraft missiles were included in a particular shipment from Israel to Iran in November 1985. Mr Casey planned to say the Government thought the shipment contained oil drilling equipment. Mr Sofaer had pointed out that the Government knew the shipment consisted of Hawk missiles when it asked Portuguese Government permission to allow . transshipment through Lisbon, the “Post” said: